42°37′35″ N 80°4′28″ W

Aug 25 – en route to Port Stanley

We got up at 5:30am this morning & prepared to cast of by 7:00. As soon as the sun started to rise we got underway.

It’s a nice calm day so we should not have any trouble reaching our destination. (photo below – departing Port Dover marina).

The initial part of our journey requires us to head south east for about 15 miles to get past the tip of Long Point & then we will be able to turn west & head in a straight line towards Port Stanley. With any luck we should be there between 5:00 & 6:00pm tonight.

Cheers & stay tuned for updates!

42°47′3″ N 80°11′42″ W

Aug 24 – Port Dover, Ontario

We started out from Port Colborne at 5:00am on Thursday morning hoping to complete the 95 mile, 14 hour journey to Port Stanley in one day but it wasn’t too long before we realized that wasn’t going to happen.

Even though the weather forecast was good there were still lots of waves & rough water on the lake. We weren’t in any danger but it was a pretty uncomfortable ride so we started considering our options.

Unfortunately, because of our location & the fact that Long Point protrudes many miles into Lake Erie, that meant we would have to make a significant change in our course in order to get to a marina in a reasonable time.

We finally decided to head to a marina in Port Dover & altered our course. We arrived there at 1:00pm & we’re glad to be out of the “lumpy seas”.

This part of Lake Erie has a lot of underwater oil wells. There is no infrastructure above the water but lots of pipelines & wellheads on the lake bottom are shown on the charts. En route to Port Dover we also passed a few barges that we assume were servicing the wells.

Port Dover has a very large marina that is owned & operated by the municipality.

We tied up on the transient dock close to the marina office & other amenities.

Once we were secure on the dock we took some time for a rest. Catherine read.

I went for a walk around the marina yard to check out the boats & found a fixer-upper that I’m sure we could get for a great price. Lotsa room inside & we could bump up against almost anything without too much worry about scratching the paint!

After our rest we decided to walk to the downtown area & grab a bite to eat. Catherine’s brother Steve sent us a text message suggesting that we go to the “Arbour” sidewalk restaurant & have one of their footlong hotdogs. We shared a hotdog & fries & then got some ice cream cones.

We walked down to the beach to check it out & then headed back to the boat to plot our course for Friday.

On our way back we came across the sailboat “Rogue Tiger”. This beautiful boat used to be docked near our Nauticat at the marina in Goderich. The new owners in Port Dover run a successful tourist charter business with it.

The weather & wind forecast looks good so we hope we can make it to Port Stanley by supper time on Friday

Cheers!

42°52′31″ N 79°15′18″ W

Aug 20 – Port Colborne, Ontario

After our arrival on Sunday afternoon we have spent the past 3 days in Port Colborne resting, relaxing & waiting for the winds on Lake Erie to calm down enough for us to have a smooth passage to Port Stanley, our “final” destination.

If we had to be delayed somewhere along the way then Port Colborne is a great place to be.

There’s lots of things to see & do. Here’s a synopsis of the past 3 days!

Monday

This was a chore day for us. I attended to boat mechanical stuff & Catherine did the laundry. However, this time she had the luxury of automatic washers & dryers at the marina.

Here she is hard at work. A major advancement from how she got things done on the last laundry day.

Meanwhile, I was busy watching the marina staff mow our front lawn 🙂

This is quite a contraption. It is used to gather up all of the aquatic plants growing around the marina docks – especially in the shallower areas.

After lunch we walked into the town’s commercial area & bought some more groceries to keep us going until we get home. The marina offers a shuttle service so we were able to get a lift back to the boat with all of our provisions.

Tuesday

We had a relaxing morning & then walked into town after lunch to tour the museum & maritime center. The town has done a great job setting this up. It’s comprised of several historical buildings organized like a little village.

The Museum building currently has an exhibition of life in the town as the Welland Canal was initially developed. They have organized 150 artifacts to coincide with 2017 being Canada’s 150th anniversary of confederation.

There are lots of neat artifacts & supporting information about life in the town during this period of time.

The other building exhibits included a carriage house, a one-room log school, a blacksmiths shop & a settler’s home.

Also on the grounds was the pilothouse from an old steam tug that worked on the canal many years ago.

Obviously it was one of my favorite exhibits.

Catherine also found a wheel to spin. Hers was in the workroom at the back of the settler’s log cabin.

This wheel was just about the same size as the one I was playing with.

After looking everything over closely we went over to the tea room & had some tea & biscuits with homemade strawberry jam!

We closed off the day by setting up our bimini again. Now that we have no more low bridges to worry about we can enjoy the shade & shelter it provides to the flybridge. However, our timing was not all that good. We ate supper first & by the time we finally got the bimini back up it was dark & raining.

Wednesday

We had another laid back morning but I did have one chore to complete. The night before the bilge pump was acting up & not shutting off properly. I went to bed hoping that it would fix itself overnight but knew that I would probably be in the bilge after breakfast.

Luckily the solution to the problem was an easy one. I used my trusty extension handle grabber & fished out a piece of Velcro strapping that was floating in the bilge & every few pump cycles would find its way under the float switch & prevent the pump from stopping after the bilge was pumped dry. This little gadget from the Dollar Store is the best $2.50 I ever spent on a tool.

After the bilge mission was complete we got cleaned up & then went to a play in the afternoon at the Showboat Festival Theater in town.

This play was based on The Hounds of the Baskerville & it was done as a comedy. We weren’t sure what to expect but it turned out to be excellent fun & the actors were brilliant & hilarious.

We spent the rest of the afternoon & evening getting ready for an early departure on Thursday morning. The weather forecast looks promising. We’ll be up at 4:00am & cast off by 5:00am. It’s a 95 mile journey that will take us about 13 hours. If all goes according to plan we will be in Port Stanley by early evening.

Cheers!

42°52′31″ N 79°15′18″ W

Aug 20 – Port Colborne, Ontario

We left Tonawanda at 7:00am Sunday morning hoping to get a good start on the day. Winds on Lake Erie were predicted to be low in the morning & then building in the afternoon so we wanted to arrive in Port Colborne before the lake got too rough.

It was about 90 minutes from our dock in Tonawanda to the very last lock we had to pass through on the Black Rock Canal just outside of Buffalo. The route was well marked at the entrance to the Niagara River.

However, our early start plans were thwarted because when we arrived at the lock entrance there was a big sign informing us that the locks did not start operating until 11:00am on the weekends. So, we tied up to the lock entrance wall & had our second breakfast.

The lock finally opened just before 11 & we were through in about 15 minutes.

Our next encounter was a massive & ancient bascule bridge & it was slow opening because of mechanical issues.

This bridge had a concrete counterweight on it that was the size of a small house!

Finally we were headed towards Lake Erie but conditions did not look promising as there were lots of whitecaps on the water & that means a rough ride.

I suggested to Catherine that we go out past the breakwater to see what it was like & that if it was too rough then we would turn around & find a marina near Buffalo. Our only problem with Buffalo as the backup plan was that the weather forecast was for wind conditions to get worse each day until Thursday & we were anxious to get “home” to Ontario. (photo below – Buffalo skyline)

Once we were past the breakwater the waves got pretty rough, consistently 2-4 feet high with the occasional 5-6 footer mixed in for some additional excitement. We actually got wet up on the flybridge from waves breaking over the bow. I would have taken some photos of our crossing but I was kinda busy at the helm & Catherine was too busy hanging on for dear life. Our only consolation was that we were coming into the waves head on, which made for a rough (& sometimes wet) ride but at least we weren’t being tossed from side to side.

I told Catherine that we could turn around if she wanted to but she said that if this was as bad as it would get, & we “only” had 2 1/2 hours to go then she wanted to keep going as long as we were safe.

We finally arrived at Port Colborne’s Sugarloaf Marina around 2:30pm & were very happy to be secured to the dock.

After we were tied up I called Canada Customs to report our return to Canada from the USA & to also import the boat into Canada. I was able to do everything over the phone & with the help of a credit card to pay the HST on the boat.

So now our little trawler is officially a Canadian citizen! I think she’ll like being in fresh water but she may not be so thrilled about our winters.

The weather forecast for the next several days is sunny but with strong winds so we will hang out here in Port Colborne until at least Thursday. Then we will make a long day trip to Port Stanley.

The marina here is very nice with great amenities so it won’t be too much of a hardship to stay here for 3 more days. There’s even a Don Cherry’s restaurant here that’s conveniently located above the marina office. Catherine & I had a light dinner there to celebrate our arrival into Canada. The Lake Erie crab cakes were delicious!

Cheers, eh!

43°1′18″ N 78°52′39″ W

Aug 19 – Tonawanda, NY

The screenshot below shows our location relative to Buffalo & also to Port Colborne, Ontario where we plan to “officially” land in Canada on Sunday afternoon & report in to Canadian Customs.

On Saturday we travelled the last leg of our journey through the Erie Canal. We left Holley at 7:00am & arrived in Tonawanda at 5:00pm with a few interesting events along the way!

As we approached the lift bridge in Albion the operator asked us to tie up along the wall for a while because there was a running marathon in progress & he could not raise the bridge until the last runner had crossed over.

We took advantage of this pause & fixed ourselves a second cup of coffee & watched the runners pass by. We were back underway in less than an hour.

We were now putting the majority of locks & lift bridges behind us. One of the last locks on the canal had a large dry dock at the upper end & there were several workboats & barges stored in it. I would have liked to have stopped & looked around some more but we were anxious to get to Tonawanda before the end of the day.

The last several miles of the canal were also lined with large apple & tender fruit orchards & fields of corn & soybeans.

The final two locks in the Erie Canal system are located in Lockport & they are pretty spectacular. The two locks are back-to-back so after you go up (or down) in the first lock the gate opens to let you directly into the second lock. The two locks combined change a boat’s elevation by 49 feet.

We made it into the first lock OK & were ready for the “lift” as soon as the lockmaster was ready to go.

There were lots of people on the bridges above watching the locking process.

The lockmaster informed us by radio that a local tour boat was in the lock above us & that we would exchange places when the middle lock gates opened.

When the first locking process was completed the captain of the tour boat radioed me & asked that I come in behind his boat before he would start to move. We proceeded into the lock & there was quite a bit of turbulence in the lock caused by water leaking in past the upper gates & the flooding valves. When the tour boat started to move his propeller wash combined with the other turbulence, forced our boat away from the lock wall & we began to turn sideways in the lock. At that point I had no choice except to complete a 360 degree turn & try for the wall lines again. While I was up on the helm flybridge trying to maneuver Catherine was down on the main deck with a boathook trying to figure out what the heck I was doing! We couldn’t hear each other because of the noise from all of the water leaking past the lock gates.

To make a long story short, we finally got the turn completed, secured the boat to the wall lines & got lifted to the next level. I was very lucky to complete a full circle turn with a 34 foot long boat in a 45 foot wide lock without hitting the walls or breaking anything. It would have been neat to have a picture or two of that but my hands were “full” at the time.

When we reached the top elevation I apologized to the lockmaster for the delay & he told me not to feel too bad as I was certainly not the first boat to get turned around like that & would also not be the last one to do that.

It must have been quite a show for everyone watching from above. 🙀

After we left the lock we resumed our journey to Tonawanda. We arrived there about 2 hours later. It rained hard for about 45 minutes while we were underway but thankfully the rain stopped before we reached our destination. We were glad to have the locks & lift bridges behind us.

Next stop – Port Colborne, Ontario.

Cheers!